Anomalous itinerant magnetism in single-crystal Sr4Ru3O10:: A thermodynamic and transport investigation

A thermodynamic and transport study of Sr4Ru3O10 as a function of temperature and magnetic field is presented. The central results include a growing specific heat C with increasing field B, a magnetic contribution to C/T at low temperatures proportional to -log(T), an abrupt jump and a peak in C/T at 2.9 T and 7 T for B parallel to ab plane and B parallel to c axis, respectively, and corresponding changes in the low-T power laws of the resistivity. The novelty of this work lies in the fact that this system is strongly anisotropic displaying spontaneous ferromagnetism along the c axis and an intralayer metamagnetic transition with a possibility of a nearby quantum critical point. The exotic behavior reflects new physics that is yet to be understood.